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From: "David Johnston" <polobo@yahoo.com>
To: "'Merlin Moncure'" <mmoncure@gmail.com>
Cc: "'Darren Duncan'" <darren@darrenduncan.net>,
 <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
References: 
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	<4E498536.9080109@darrenduncan.net>
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In-Reply-To: 
 <CAHyXU0yb49wXCEpkKSemtTthn7YzwFCQG0ZtXWo9NK3h2tVyxg@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Using Postgresql as application server
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:46:30 -0400
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-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Merlin Moncure
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2011 6:10 PM
To: David Johnston
Cc: Darren Duncan; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Using Postgresql as application server

On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 4:54 PM, David Johnston <polobo@yahoo.com> =
wrote:
>>>
>>>I believe that it is ideal for Postgres to be computationally=20
>>>complete in that one *could* use it to implement a complete=20
>>>application. =A0That isn't to say one should do this as a matter of=20
>>>course, good to use appropriate tools for a >>job, but that it should =

>>>at least be possible if one wanted to. -- Darren Duncan
>
> So who wants to fund the effort to create the necessary infrastructure =
to
display a programmer-defined user interface screen (think of the "Forms"
module in Microsoft Access)? =A0Or are you expecting the end-user to =
open up
PgAdmin and type "SELECT hello_world();". =A0I would argue that because
PostgreSQL is able to talk with many languages that can create these =
"Forms"
(or even - through extensions - a web-browser) that such functionality =
is
NOT DESIREABLE and thus PostgreSQL would not ideally be "computationally
complete" by that definition.

I've been thinking for a while about doing this: describe the interface =
in
tables along with some rendering code which directly accepts the request =
and
spits out some html.  I'd be gunning for something with the speed and =
ease
of development of delphi, which fwict has never been reproduced.  So =
you'd
have a 'form' table which you could then bind to a real table via an =
adapter
or some automatic scaffolding which renders the entry based on the =
structure
of the table.  Sitting in front of the database would probably be an =
ultra
thin web server like node.js which just grabs the request and hands it =
to
the database through a simple connection pool.

merlin

--------------------------------------------------

A more powerful (and complex) solution would be to integrate some form =
of
"Templating" solution  (e.g., Velocity) and require that the interface
definitions be templates that generate valid HTML upon processing (since
your solution already requires an external web browser anyway).  Hstore =
and
Cursors (with a named composite type) could be used to feed data into =
the
template.

David J.